She stared at him.
“Lucien Emil Jean-Luc Durand. Iknowyou don’t mean ‘gaming hell.’”
“Every day I thank my creator for a wife who’s smart as well as beautiful. For right you are. It’s not quite a hell.”
“Lucien.”
“Let’s just say gaming hells played a significant role in his past, just as they did in mine. And at these hells he learned how to become a successful business owner, just as these hells in my formative years are in part what gave your husband the air of danger you find so alluring. Speaking of which, have you seen my favorite stockings?” He was riffling through his clothes press.
Being married meant knowing that her husband, who had sailed the high seas and killed a pirate or two, had a favorite pair of stockings, which looked to her exactly like all of his other stockings. Why this pair of stockings was exceptional remained a mystery to her, but she always made sure it was handled with tender care when they sent out the laundry.
“Here.” She scooped up a wrapped bundle on her dressing table. “The laundry was returned to us this afternoon so I haven’t yet had a chance to put everything away.”
“Ah! Thank you.” He sat down on their bed to pull them on. “Marchand and I struck up a friendship of sorts at the Pit, whichwasan infamous hell, over a decade ago, because his job was to...” He trailed off again at Angelique’s expression.
“His job was to stop thugs from bashing heads? In other words, hisjobwas to actually bash heads? Lovely.”
“Backthen. And before you draw conclusions about him, one might say that this was Captain Hardy’s job, too. The ‘stopping thugs’ part.”
“I shouldloveto see Captain Hardy’s expression when you share this comparison with him.”
Lucien laughed, because he would love to see it, too. Captain Hardy was the legendary blockade captain who had at last broken the back of the English smuggling trade. King George IV had even sent him a silver cup as a wedding present as a token of his gratitude and esteem. And while Hardy had become Lucien’s good friend and confidant and partner in the Triton Group, they were different in as many ways as they were alike.
“Angelique, Marchand has done tremendously well for himself against formidable odds. He’s an enterprising, hardworking, resourceful man of significant charm. I daresay he’swealthier than we are now. And who knows better than we do about creating something from nothing? Or about taking a gamble?”
Her wily husband was making good points. The Grand Palace on the Thames itself was a veritable monument to risk. When the former Countess of Derring, now Delilah Hardy, inherited the building from her late husband, the only occupants had been mice and spiders and possibly ghosts. Desperation, imagination, ingenuity, and hope had restored the building, and Helga’s scones, Gordon the cat, the Epithet Jar, and their list of rules had turned it into the home of their dreams. Delilah and Angelique had taken the greatest risk of all by falling in love with and marrying Captain Tristan Hardy and Lucien Durand, respectively, when miracle of miracles, they appeared at the boardinghouse door and became guests.
From the very first they had vowed to never allow anyone they didn’t like to live there for any duration. This lofty ideal didn’t always stand up to the vicissitudes of commerce. Regardless, every guest was patiently cherished for the duration of their stay, whether they were someone the entire country revered (like a war-hero duke), or someone who needed to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the place by the British army (this had happened only once), or whether they were Mr. Delacorte, whom no one yet had been able to categorize, but no one ever forgot, and most people eventually loved. Though he was of a certainty an acquired taste.
“I can see, however, how both you and Delilah might want to exercise a bit of caution, considering the turmoil a certain recent guest has inspired.”
Now Lucien was fighting a little dirty.
She hesitated. “Turmoilis a bit overstated, Lucien.”
“If you say so,” Lucien said dryly.
It was true that combining certain guests in the sitting room could be a little risky, such as mingling a duke with a scandalous opera diva, or mingling Mr. Delacorte with... well, anybody... but that was part of the thrill of the game. So confident had they become in their skill as social alchemists, Delilah and Angelique had invited Daniel Peck and his family to stay. They had never before had a guest quite like him.
They were beginning to think they never should again.
Mr. Delacorte was unexpectedly bearing the brunt of Daniel’s stay. Which was a shame, because he’d also been attempting to teach Dot how to play chess, and this had qualified him for martyrhood even before Dot decided to give all of her chess pieces first names.
“But what of Mr. Marchand’s character?” Angelique pressed.
Lucien regarded her evenly. “Do you trust my judgment?”
This was a mildly fraught question in any marital discussion.
“It is generally impeccable in most things,” she admitted carefully. “From stockings to wives.”
When he smiled, her heart performed lazy cartwheels. In her weaker moments she wondered why she would ever argue with him about anything. She felt absurdly lucky to sleep every night next to a man who had eyes the color of moss agates, the soul of a sardonic poet and made love with inventive fervor.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to fault his manners, Angelique. Which, as we both know, cannot be said about everyone who lives here.”
Last night in the sitting room while Mrs. Pariseau was reading aloud fromThe Arabian Nights Entertainments, Mr. Delacorte had thumped his sternum lightly to release a little belch, to everyone’s startled consternation. He’d been so caught up in the story he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. He was forgiven, as Mrs. Pariseau’s captivating way of doing all the voicescouldsweep anyone away. Unlike cursing, belching in the sitting room was not subject to the one-penny fine imposed by the Epithet Jar, which Mr. Delacorte reliably kept jingling. It was how they paid for the daily newspapers. Mr. Delacorte firmly believed the Grand Palace on the Thames was smoothing away all of his rough corners.
“So what does Mr. Marchand look like?” Angelique wondered.
